TF2 Mapping Episode 3: The Results are In!

The map has been playtested on the tf2maps server for the first time and the demo is recorded.

Looks like we have a problem here.

I looked into the demo and in this episode I'll breakdown all the important results from the playtest. Unfortunately, it is not possible to take a screenshot while the demo file is playing so I will go over the features I noticed in the playtest.

1. It was hard for blue to gain advantage after coming out of their spawn. One player noted that "There is no advantage point blue can use after coming out of the spawn point. When we die we are just sent back to the spawn." The area in front of spawn is a small ramp and the blue spawns at the bottom of the small ramp. While it is common for a map to put blue at slight disadvantage due to their easy access to their spawn, often they'll have a route blue players can take to gain small advantage against red. Although blue players can easily penetrate this area in this map due to the small distance to point A, there were times where red was able to completely push blue back to their spawn. It was harder for blue to breakout compared to other maps.

2. The capture time for the first point is exceedingly fast. Because blue only has to walk short distance to their first objective, it is only fair to make the capturing much harder.

3. I've noticed that this area is underused. It was meant to be a sniper perch for blue team, however, it barely saw any use. I suspect this is because snipers can still take relatively easy shot near the gate at similar distance without having to walk to this area.

4. Since area 3 was not used in general, this route was pretty much ignored by the red team. It was meant to be used by red spies but since there are no targets in the area, it was not used at all.

5. This area is very dangerous for red to be in because there are no covers. Also, blue players can easily access this area with the stairs next to it. 

6. Blue players can easily gain height advantage at the second point using this route. This is not always a bad thing because maps like Barnblitz, Gorge and Badwater all allows blue to have high ground without much fighting. It is very easy for blue to control this area too because of the health pack placement. Gorge even gives blue a lot of height advantage to players who managed to get past the last chokepoint. This area is also connected to area 8 which allows extremely easy access to red's final spawn but we'll get to that later.

7. As expected, scouts were able to easily access the second point using this route. However, there were no risk to be taken by the blue players using this route because the lower spawn gate was not used very much by the red players. They all preferred the upper gate due to it giving direct height advantage to the last point.

8. As I mentioned before, blue players were able to access the red gate way too easily. This allowed scouts and pyros to sometimes overrun the recently spawned players from the back. Some players also noted that because of the short respawn timer, it was too hectic for blue. The last point also became a 'meat grinder' as red 'desperately threw their body on the point.' It is not a fun experience for red. Not much strategy was involved either.

In general:

Engineers from both team had nothing to do. Teleporters are meaningless due to the short walk time and there are no sentry placement even for the red engineer. Blue was able to access the second point area way too easily so red barely had time to set up a sentry nest.

The lack of chokepoint in this map disperses the fight all across the map. This leads to unorganized gameplay without much of a team work. During the playtest I saw lots of players usually spending time alone.

1.  I think there should be a chokepoint in this area. This area will need to be extended to accompany the chokepoint.

2. Only the team who gains control of the chokepoint will be able to gain access to the 'market.' Currently, any blue players can walk in and it is not fun as a red player to deal with them.

3. This route will be more open towards the blue team. It connects the river and the chokepoint. 

4. I will block this area. Blue will have harder time penetrating red territory.

Since the lack of chokepoint is the largest problem, I will fix this area first before trying to fix other areas.

In the next episode, I will go over how I changed the area in hammer.